Medal Score is NOT Competitive and Does NOT Equate to Skill

CameraBeardThePirate · September 11

Brian mentioned that the 4v4 leaderboard will be based on Medal Score. While he did not specify if it was Cumulative Medal Score (the way it is currently on live) or Average Medal Score (slightly better, still problematic), the idea of basing the leaderboard on Medal Score completely misses the mark on what a "competitive" queue should be.

The medal score system is easily gamed. You can very easily farm crit heals for 15k+ medal score in a game. People have done this in the current leaderboard system as a joke to reach an astronomically high score on the leaderboard. You don't have to win the match or even perform well to do this, just throw out some crit heals.

Medal Score completely disregards Necromancers and damage shield support builds. It doesn't really matter on the live servers, since the leaderboards don't give very good rewards, but tying the "competitive" mode to medal score will mean that Necromancers will be at a severe disadvantage, since their main skills (Blastbones and Mender) do not count for anything on the leaderboard. Similarly, damage shield supports can be just as effective (if not more effective) as a dedicated healer, but do not earn any medal score, as Damage Shields don't count for healing on the scoreboard.

If the leaderboard remains as Cumulative Medal Score, the leaderboard will reflect # of games played rather than skill. You cannot call this a Competitive Queue if the leaderboard is merely # of games played. Someone that performs half as good as someone else but plays twice as many games will have the same leaderboard score as the better performing player. This is silly.

ZOS, the Competitive Leaderboard for 4v4s cannot be tied to medal score, as the system is poorly designed, unfairly weighted against certain classes and builds, and will not reflect true skill/win-loss.

Necrotech_Master · September 11

agreed, MMR should never have been based on medal score

i really dont know why they dont just do a scoring system like they do for tribute where you gain points on a win and lose points on a loss, and this would change your bracket, it would work for BGs (losing points is very annoying for tribute though)

ForumSavant · September 16

MMR can be made extremely accurate and in depth.

You can add a system that makes it so players get more of boost in MMR if they beat a team that has MMR relatively high compared to theirs, or lose a lot if they lose and the enemy team's MMR is low in comparison.

But they don't even have to do that. A Win/Loss type leaderboard without super in depth calculations will always be better than basing it off medal score/time played.

Someone who loses 90% of their games but is playing ESO for 100 hours a week does not deserve to be higher on the leaderboard than someone playing 20 hours a week winning 95% of their games.

Aldoss · September 16

Can't wait for the inevitable moment that ZOS "solves" this by removing the crit heal medal and calling it a day.

IndigoDreams · October 4

OP you nailed with the necromancer breakdown

I main a necro healer in PvP and conistently score abysmally low no matter how well i and my team perform

it is sure due an overhaul!

Amottica · October 4

I would first suggest it depends on how the medal score is used and OP notes that are unknown when composing this thread.
It also depends on how the medals are granted, which is not even discussed in the OP.

One aspect that is known is that medal scores can be gamed. If the medal reward system is designed well, it can be gamed by playing to the match's objectives, which should include measuring the contribution support someone provides, though no support role needs to be pure support in ESO.

Once we know these details, we can have a good discussion.

I will also add that ESO's small population for PvP means a very wide range of MMR would end up in the same match. This is especially true outside of peak hours. The new design would have to bring in a lot of new players to PvP to make a real difference.